Who is Deng Fei ?

DENG Fei (Chinese Name:邓飞) is one of China’s best-known investigative reporters. He now serves as the editorial board member of Phoenix Weekly magazine and manages fourteen non-profit and philanthropic-natured programs he initiated. While working as a reporter with Phoenix Weekly, Deng developed a deep understanding of social problems suffered by lower class Chinese people, particularly those in the rural areas. Deng empathized their sufferings and was empowered to go beyond journalism and take his advantage in social media to speak for issues of marginalized Chinese people. In 2011 he succeeded in launching his most well-known non-profit project, “Free Lunch for rural children”. This project offered free meals to rural kids who could not afford lunch at school due to extreme poverty in the family and it also effectively addressed the issue of malnutrition in those poor areas.

Deng also initiated other nationwide non-profit programs, for example, the “Anti-Child- Trafficking Campaign”, the “Free Healthcare for China’s Rural Children” and the “Children Protection Scheme”. Dedicated to empower rural population and promote rural development, Deng not only fulfilled his civil responsibility but also influenced a large number of students, governors and entrepreneurs into agents of civic change. More importantly, by leveraging the power of social media as a reporter, Deng created a new model of “micro-philanthropy”. Under his leadership, transparency, engagement, and the power of empathy become new values for China’s growing nonprofit industry. Deng is helping to push forward the cooperation between policy-makers, corporate leaders and grass-roots change makers to find solutions to fundamental social issues faced by contemporary China.

Deng received Davos Global Young Leaders in 2014 and earned the EMBA degree from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in 2015.